RECIPE INCLUDED! The joy of being an adult. I can have cake, just cake for dinner if I so choose. Both of my children are with their father's so there is no 'formal' dinner to be made for the next few days. I love my kids and I enjoy cooking for them, but ... Hooray!

This is the Ding Dong cake that made for my son. I posted a picture on Facebook, and people requested the recipe. This cake was easy enough to prepare. There were a few additional steps and some science involved over a basic cake recipe. It this cake is a sight to behold. I made some adjustments to the recipe which resulted in this delicious decedant confection. On Tuesday I baked the cake in two 9" round pans, cooled the cake on racks, wrapped in plastic until the next evening's assembly. This chilling also made the cakes so easy to slice in half with a serrated knife. (the dental floss method so popular on Pinterest? Weird and too flexible of a medium for cutting a cake, in my opinion.)The filling was by the recipe; butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar and ... cool whip. I understand the necessity of the cool whip, to aerate the filling and provide the traditional ding dong filling taste and texture. But cool whip is gross. I mean, chemical shit storm gross. Have you ever read the ingredient list, or have you - like me - simply enjoyed it topping my pumpkin pie every Thanksgiving. Top ingredients in cool whip? Hydrogenated vegetable oil and high fructose corn syrup. I will tweak the recipe, do some chemistry, and come up with an alternative.

The chocolate frosting is ganache. Oh my. If you have never heard of ganache, you have certainly eaten it. Typically ganache is the filling of truffles. It is very simply made. This recipe tried to screw it up but I intervened. Ganache is so delicious. Ganache is so wrong as the covering for this cake. Next time I will make a simple chocolate glaze.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give this cake a 6. It is impressive and perfectly fine, but there are ways that I will tweak it and make it better, more delicious, more balanced in textures and flavors. Yes, this is my last piece of cake for a while. Oiy. I need some vegetables.